It's 7:42pm Haiti time, I'm at the office. I haven't been able to write not because I haven't had the time, but because unfortunately I haven't been feeling very well. I'm hoping and praying that no day left here is worse than yesterday. Is that a lot to ask considering I have about 55 days left here? I hope not. I will eat very little from now, I know I need strength, but I don't want to be more sick than yesterday, and yesterday I wasn't even that sick.
Basically I don't think that sandwich from the gas station up the street or cereal with whatever milk in the morning did me any good. I still had a ton to learn yesterday (everyday here during this first week is very important because like I said, everyone is leaving and things will be left to me) so I didn't want any kind of feeling bad to stop me from being productive and learning. Even though I was feeling a little nauseous, I still went with Nadine to figure out some donation thing...
I will be in charge of incoming donations to SOS here in Santo and since SOS is a big NGO then we get a lot of big donations from a lot of other big NGO's. It probably sounds like a difficult task, and I think it will be. At least right now it seems a bit confusing, hopefully with time I'll be be able to understand everything. Basically, I need to go to the warehouses, which are part of the World Food Programme, to pick up the donations we receive. By donations I mean large quantities of things: water, matresses, beds, tents, diapers, etc. So when I say pick up, it means I get a chauffeur, get a truck, guide the chauffeur to the warehouses (there are two and I already know where they are), sign some papers, make sure the things get put in the truck, and drive back to the village.
So at around 9am we left to the private port of Port au Prince.. I didn't even know the port was in Port au Prince but about thirty minutes into the drive I began to see a little bit of destruction and some tent camps. So then I asked and Nadine confirmed we were going into the city. We passed some market (the grand market apparently) and I began to think this- I really doubt there can be a worse place to be right now than Port au Prince. That is how horrible I felt about the city yesterday. I began to feel extremely disgusted and even more in shock... me, in the back seat of a truck, nauseous, looking at tons and tons of people doing everything on the street (again, eating, washing, bathing). I felt so out of it that it's hard to even remember exactly what I saw yesterday- I just now that I didn't like what I was seeing at all.
So what we were trying to figure out yesterday was a way to get some donations out of the public port here in Port au Prince. We are having complications, I couldn't get into the details because I don't understand it perfectly- but basically, we just had to go to a lot of places and talk to a lot of people, because we are having trouble getting it. Because of the earthquake, a lot of offices have moved, and that also made our trip a lot longer yesterday.
So we first went to the port, where I did manage to get out of the car and meet some people and pretend I was feeling fine. Then we drove around downtown and talked to different people ..and that's where I began to see even more destruction than Sunday and suddenly it wasn't just my nauseous stomach...my legs began to feel weak and suddenly, all of my energy was gone. I felt down, confused, I began to get a headache and in this extremely hot and sunny day, with all the people and rubble and trash I was seeing out of the window, I began to ask myself why I had decided to come and what I was going to do here. All of a sudden, I lost all of my strength to grab my camera and take a picture and I decided I didn't even want emotional strength to look. I wished with all of my heart and all of my mind that what was in front of me was just a dream- or a nightmare, better said- and that I would wake up and be back in Costa Rica, where right now everything is luxury. I thought, what am I doing here, these people are used to this, eating this food, seeing this poverty, walking through the rubble, taking extremely crowded "bus rides", smelling others who haven't showered in days... what good can I do to these people, one, two or three people could never make a difference (this is me not thinking straight of course).
The worst part was me having to wait in the car for them because by 12 pm, it was clear I wasn't feeling very well and I was not going to get anything out of listening or being a part of these conversations. So during one of these waits I finally forced myself to vomit, something I had been wanting to do since the morning. I didn't want to do it on the street because I didn't want to look like a white person making the city even dirtier, so I had to hide inside of the car and fortunately, the chauffeur had a bag I could use. Doing this (sorry if it is too disgusting) is not easy for me, that's why it took me all morning and that's why I forced myself... but at one point I knew I had to do it to feel better. I looked up the window and cried a little bit of frustration.
But I did feel a little bit better after that. We drove back around 2pm and I spent the 1hr. ride back with my eyes closed, with my sun in my face, sleeping and having my thoughts on far away places... When I got back the rest of the volunteers could tell I wasn't feeling very well. I felt extremely weak and I felt guilty for having so much to learn and really not being able to. But, everyone is very understanding here. They told me not to worry- to go lie down. I went to the house and took a nap for about two hours I woke up feeling a little better.
During nighttime I knew I had to eat something, so I went to dinner, not looking forward to what would be there for me. So far, all of what I have eating here has depressed me. I have realized how great of a diet I have had.. basically my whole life. Hopefully two months of this kind of diet (which will be mentioned more in future posts) won't do me any harm- just teach me about patience and strength. I drank some soup that the volunteers from Spain had cooked- no worries, it was basically like one of those maggi noodle soups. I walked back to the house, took some pills, prayed for a better day the next day and talked to my mom on the phone a little bit and explained her my situation. She told me to be patient- everyone had felt like that when she had gone. I tried to pass out..
At around 11pm, I heard some people fighting. I was half dead from feeling sick and from taking pills, so the noise and the yelling sounded even worse than they probably were. I began to pray... listening to some men scream at each other in some unknown creole scared me, and it wasn't just the men, you could tell a lot of people were getting into it, others were screaming, even woman, and of course, millions of dogs were barking.... I know that the fight happened outside of the gates of the village, outside of our little safe area, and I know that we are far from Port au Prince, where the worst happens, but I still felt scared. I prayed until I stopped listening to this commotion about twenty minutes later.
I thought to myself, this for sure, has been one of the worst days of my life.
Don't get sad about reading this story- today was a new day- as the day progressed I began to feel stronger and stronger, I'm being careful with what I eat but I am eating, for sure. I had half an apple I had grabbed in Santo Domingo for breakfast and a little bit of Corn Flakes (without milk), for lunch I had tuna from Costa Rica (I was so excited about eating this tuna for lunch, this is how bad it is now) and for dinner I had some spaghetti - everything just a little bit. I don't think I will be able to eat a lot of salads here (not safe and there isn't a lot) or fruits (there aren't any). But for me, this is the worst part about being here-and of course the living conditions aren't that great- but that is a lot more easy to deal with (at least for me) than the food.
Today I was able to process, memorize and understand a lot of what I will be doing. I spent my day with Niklas, the german volunteer who is leaving tomorrow. I'm sad because he is nice, he is cool and also there won't be a lot of young people left here. But, there a lot of nice people here so it will be okay. We went to the UN base to pick up some volunteers from Bolivia, followed some paperwork in different parts of the UN Base, like the World Food Programme and in the afternoon we went to a warehouse to pick up 5 palettes of beds, a donation from the German army. Later in the afternoon, I took some pictures of some the children from the village laying and playing on these beds- I used a flash because it was late and dark inside of the tent.
I feel a lot better than yesterday. Maybe people are right- the first days are the hardest. These are the very very very very first days of two months- but from now on, I will keep being positive, this will pass, this will be my reality for very little time, and I know many many many people are proud of me- unless I get extremely sick, I will be fine and be here as planned. And most importantly, we are doing this for the kids, the village used to have 150 kids.. since the earthquake there are almost 500 kids. The number of kids changes everyday- we receive some- some are reunited with the families.
As far as photography, not sure anymore about my exact goals.. photographing in Port au Prince seems like an extremely difficult thing to do, and wanting to tell stories also seems difficult considering I don't speak french or creole.. there are always translators, but it's not the same. Time will tell...
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